I’m fortunate enough to have a spare Windows7 (Home Premium) system. I bought Windows8-Pro upgrade from OfficeMax a few days ago when they had a 50% off pre-release sale. Not only will it get my spare machine up to a “Pro” level but it will also give me a testbed for Windows8 so that I won’t be clueless when I get repair customers asking about it.

I’m not really very enthused about moving up to Windows8 but will experiment with it.

Being in the computer service arena means I have a bunch of old machines laying about. I’ve actually gotten rid of most of them but I have kept:

I see no real need for Windows2000 or WindowsME or Windows98 and, god forbid, Windows95 anymore. However, I do recall that somewhere on my shelves I have a Windows98 laptop and a Windows2000 laptop that are each probably more effectively used as doorstops.

Signature

I’m sooo confused… I’ve come to grasp a little of the nature of reality and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I even have an inkling as to who and what I am. Auuummmmm… But please, please, who the hell are you? And why are you trampling my roses?

Nope. Never even seen one. No customers ever brought one in. I also have no Macs.
But I do have a MacOSX reference book though. :-o
I even got rid of my LINUX machines. I worked with various versions of Berkely UNIX and AT&T UNIX for two decades I figure that’s enough to drive any man ‘round-the-twist.

Signature

I’m sooo confused… I’ve come to grasp a little of the nature of reality and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I even have an inkling as to who and what I am. Auuummmmm… But please, please, who the hell are you? And why are you trampling my roses?

It’s all right for someone used to the way things are done on modern phones and tablets, but is that really a good idea for a full OS used in a desktop PC?

The problem is that for serious work, phones are tablets are crap, and MS don’t seem to realise that. The reasoning goes ‘Phones are trendy. We can make some money’ True, but the world will continue to use desktops are laptops for 95% of everyday work, so if MS abandon those users, they won’t be selling much. Already, most analysts are predicting that very few desktop users will upgrade to Win 8.

mac

I use an android phone(galaxy tab), ipad and a laptop for work. I use evernote and synchronise it so the observations I take when working with children are on all platforms. I would consider that serious work. It saves me considerable photocopying budget and also a lot of work to use them in this way. There are also other useful ways to incorporate them into a classroom.

However I would agree with you that they are not much use for 3d work at the moment(if that’s what your meant). Whether that will improve…who knows?

what you mean no start menu , everything is there , in the left bottom corner and right click and everything there as was before , people confuse win8 with the mobile version and complain about something they did not even installed , how many of you installed already the final version from october/26 ? none
you may not like something visually , this is just personal but I am happy overall with the performance and improvement for my work and that is all about , I do not try to convict you to anything just share my own personal opinion , nobody like DS4.0 also and genesis a short time ago lol

I love the fact that I can switch with a button from DS that render for me image to my favorite show and catch up on the episode without any interruption of slowing down everything or just run it both on the screen , I am multitasking and do always a lot of stuff at once the additional win8 apps allow me to skip opening additional programs and browsers while I need to power for rendering , that why using win8 apps like mail, skype, hulu, or google chrome make it much easy without slowing down anything , I remember when I was talking on skype before I could not even browser as it was distribution to the voice as skype use a lot of CPU, but now no more ..not to mention keeping in touch with over 2000 people , this get much easy now as I have everything under my hand synchronet with all my devices no matter where i go ... win8Pro provide exactly what I was looking for, for my business and fun . That are little things that make the life easy for me personally . if you don’t like to get out of your comfort zone then stick with what have
and comments at last if you used it fully functional . I would not update if I don’t need it .

But yes as each new software nothing is perfect , and until at last late 2013 I don’t expect that everything will be flawless
that is just impossible .

I bought it earlier off the Microsoft site took hours to install and update mind i did put it over the top of win 7 but messed up as it was caught in an update loop had to wait about an hour for it to say it was messed up.
My Fingerprint security is dead as no drivers are available for it yet, took me a bit to work out how to shut the thing down without having the start menu.

All in al you can see why they only charged £24.99 for the upgrade to win 8 pro, though I am sure ill get used to it just like I have with win 95/98/me/xp/vista and win 7.

Not too happy with it at the moment but I am sure ill learn to love it in the end.

the new win8 tablet does not speak to me at all and I would not get it , for me waste of money and 1 program you can use is microsoft office and that is the rest are regular apps , they are too late with the tablet on the market not to mention you can buy apps only in the win8 store what is ridiculous plus the same apps are double the price as on google play or amazon app store , but they don;t have much choices at this moment so people try to make money with this situation and raise the prices , for example angry birds are free anywhere but on win8 store are for $5 .. make no sense , just an example .
what is on my wish list for a long time is now is wacom Cintiq 24HD touch .. for my art work
the rest I have is radically new and will be not upgraded at last for the next 2 years I have to live with it .
I hear rumor that Microsoft is coming with another OS and other devices could emerge by 2015

It’s all right for someone used to the way things are done on modern phones and tablets, but is that really a good idea for a full OS used in a desktop PC?

The problem is that for serious work, phones are tablets are crap, and MS don’t seem to realise that. The reasoning goes ‘Phones are trendy. We can make some money’ True, but the world will continue to use desktops are laptops for 95% of everyday work, so if MS abandon those users, they won’t be selling much. Already, most analysts are predicting that very few desktop users will upgrade to Win 8.

mac

I use an android phone(galaxy tab), ipad and a laptop for work. I use evernote and synchronise it so the observations I take when working with children are on all platforms. I would consider that serious work. It saves me considerable photocopying budget and also a lot of work to use them in this way. There are also other useful ways to incorporate them into a classroom.

However I would agree with you that they are not much use for 3d work at the moment(if that’s what your meant). Whether that will improve…who knows?

I got the downloadable version from microsoft and the first attempt was not good as I did something and made my win7 freeze and lost the download and have to start again , I know exactly what I will have to update and what will not works as it told me before instalation so I lost only 1 program for screen recording that I had to reinstall again to make it work and that was all of the trouble .
I was afraid my 3D programs will not works and that was my biggest concern , but after when I started DS and Poser it was like wow .. smooth fast workflow no more issues for $39 it was worthed
I remember how much I hate Vista first usage I just can’t get over the futuristic stuff so I switched it to the basic theme until win7 I never used any fancy theme but plain as I don’t want to waste my memory of graphic card on that

but the most surprise Steve I had after the upgrade was that my old desktop was still there messy as usual and nothing changed , well now no more as I cleaned everything from the desktop and moved to start for quick access ..

btw you know that you can’t edit the tiles of your desktop programs to match the rest but I found a hack that allow you to do that, and I made my own icons for my common application yesterday and updated the start with them they are sort of bookmarks tiles but working

the software for that is called OblyTile v.8 ( look for the version # 8 )
it allow you to create the new shortcuts on the start menu with your own tile , the big one should be created max 120x120 and the small 30x30 in png format with unlimited colors for the background

look below on the one I made yesterday, I still have to finish the rest of them for Carrara and other apps

Sal UK - 27 October 2012 04:29 PM

Glad its good for you cath!

I bought it earlier off the Microsoft site took hours to install and update mind i did put it over the top of win 7 but messed up as it was caught in an update loop had to wait about an hour for it to say it was messed up.
My Fingerprint security is dead as no drivers are available for it yet, took me a bit to work out how to shut the thing down without having the start menu.

All in al you can see why they only charged £24.99 for the upgrade to win 8 pro, though I am sure ill get used to it just like I have with win 95/98/me/xp/vista and win 7.

Not too happy with it at the moment but I am sure ill learn to love it in the end.

the windows explorer is new with additional tools and user friendly without the need for right click anymore , everywhere buttons with functions to make it touch friendly however all functions are working with pen,mouse and keyboard as well
when you finish with application just grab it and throw it out of the screen to close

This is the sort of thing that makes me uncomfortable—those are the exact features I would immediately turn off in any application which provided for doing so. I hate icons and toolbars—in DS I remove ALL the toolbars and create extra menubar menus for any functions which aren’t otherwise accessible without toolbars. I dislike touchscreens—while I appreciate their capabilities, I’ve never found one that wasn’t a tremendous productivity drain. Too much reaching, too much brushing against the wrong spot, pressing too hard or not hard enough. Gestures is another thing that sounds like it could be useful, but I’ve always found to be a tremendously inefficient way of working. Why would I want to grab an application and throw it off the screen to close it—sounds much more inefficient than either a keyboard combination or clicking on a close box.

the windows explorer is new with additional tools and user friendly without the need for right click anymore , everywhere buttons with functions to make it touch friendly however all functions are working with pen,mouse and keyboard as well
when you finish with application just grab it and throw it out of the screen to close

This is the sort of thing that makes me uncomfortable—those are the exact features I would immediately turn off in any application which provided for doing so. I hate icons and toolbars—in DS I remove ALL the toolbars and create extra menubar menus for any functions which aren’t otherwise accessible without toolbars. I dislike touchscreens—while I appreciate their capabilities, I’ve never found one that wasn’t a tremendous productivity drain. Too much reaching, too much brushing against the wrong spot, pressing too hard or not hard enough. Gestures is another thing that sounds like it could be useful, but I’ve always found to be a tremendously inefficient way of working. Why would I want to grab an application and throw it off the screen to close it—sounds much more inefficient than either a keyboard combination or clicking on a close box.

It must be a ‘guy’ thing…my wife loves her tablet and all the ‘cute’ buttons and moving things around with a finger. My daughters…more so.

I would never want to replace my keyboard, but I do use an iPad, and I really find the touchscreen very nice for the things I use it for. Win 8 should also make operating my desktop from the iPad even easier, since it’s interface is made for the touchscreen environment.

Desktop programs works the same way as it was before and there are not much change to it and the workflow I was talking about win8 APPs finding a little cross and click it right on a screen is not simple with touch screen , so throwing it out is the fastest way in this case and I am used to do that on my tablet so for me nothing new ... I just like to touch and btw I never used mous in my entire live .. it is all personal choice , important what is best for you as nothing in this world can be good to everyone ...
I remember when I said that I would NEVER purchase a tablet , until I did from curiosity and got hooked up I just love so much tech gadgets and go with the flow .
However not always , I stopped using Poser after ver.8 until 2012 , I hate the changes in the interface until today , including the stupid library but have no choice and have to use it , I like programs I am working in to be simple and I am not fan of the Poser tabs or DS tabs either , and what make me like win8 is that I can throw it away if I don;t need it and get it outta my way and go back to it with a simple touch .. keeping my workspace clean if I need it , reducing also the memory of my vid card
also I love the search with one click I have all files I looking for or are that DAZ installers or Read me or renders as the files are pretty good organized by itself automatic , for example I look for files associated with DAZ3D, boom everything is there in a sec ..
They did it so easy even blind can find a file and send it

fixmypcmike - 27 October 2012 06:11 PM

Mec4D - 27 October 2012 06:06 AM

the windows explorer is new with additional tools and user friendly without the need for right click anymore , everywhere buttons with functions to make it touch friendly however all functions are working with pen,mouse and keyboard as well
when you finish with application just grab it and throw it out of the screen to close

This is the sort of thing that makes me uncomfortable—those are the exact features I would immediately turn off in any application which provided for doing so. I hate icons and toolbars—in DS I remove ALL the toolbars and create extra menubar menus for any functions which aren’t otherwise accessible without toolbars. I dislike touchscreens—while I appreciate their capabilities, I’ve never found one that wasn’t a tremendous productivity drain. Too much reaching, too much brushing against the wrong spot, pressing too hard or not hard enough. Gestures is another thing that sounds like it could be useful, but I’ve always found to be a tremendously inefficient way of working. Why would I want to grab an application and throw it off the screen to close it—sounds much more inefficient than either a keyboard combination or clicking on a close box.